Working In Uncertainty

Promoting integrated management of risk/uncertainty

Welcome. This website and my work promote understanding and use of ways to
manage risk/uncertainty as an integral part of core management and other
intellectual activities, such as planning, design, and decision-making.
This is especially relevant to anyone with an interest in management methods
or design, and even more so if risk is your greatest interest.

Managing risk/uncertainty naturally and integrally can be done in lots of
ways and I want to help you understand and use them. Many useful techniques
are easy to understand and to use. Others take a little longer to grasp. I try
hard to keep my explanations simple, clear, and evenly paced, with plenty of
examples.

The story behind Working In Uncertainty

This website is consulted by many experts, including practitioners from
leading companies, charities, and government departments, researchers,
bloggers, and the authors of new standards and guidance. My research has even
influenced the wording of key requirements placed on listed companies. I am in
frequent contact with other leading thinkers on risk, control, governance, and
management generally as we help each other forward.

How did this happen?

The story has been of a gradual transition from the rather narrow ideas and
services I learned about while employed by PricewaterhouseCoopers – all
about risk management and internal controls, with lots of lists – to a
much more open, technically more varied and natural perspective that also
encompasses ideas and techniques from science and mathematics.

I've always worked hard to learn and to push for improvements, and along
the way I've helped a lot of clients (e.g. BT, BP, and the Department for
Communities and Local Government) written two books
and countless articles, earned two Certificates of Distinguished Service from
the British Standards Institution for my work on risk standards, and helped
hundreds of university students through my lecturing and supervision.

But what has moved my thinking on more than any of this has been my surveys
to find out what most people think on matters to do with risk and management.
These have revealed that I'm not a maverick or a revolutionary. In fact, I'm
mostly speaking for the overlooked majority.

Videos

Interview with Jonathan Norman of Gower

Jonathan Norman is the publisher at Gower who encouraged me to write my
first book. In these very short videos he is asking me about some key themes
in the book. Gower wanted to make very short videos, so our conversation was
edited down to these two.

Part 1.

Part 2.

Hundreds of people receive notification of new publications every month. They include company directors, heads of finance, of internal audit, of risk management, and of internal control, professors, and other influential authors and researchers.

Collaboration with Nik Silver

Centre for Risk Research

The University of Southampton's Centre for Risk
Research now has me as a member. The Centre does a wide range of
interesting research and projects with clients. I have been a visiting
lecturer there for several years and the experience has greatly increased my
knowledge and abilities.

Breakthrough publication by IFAC

IFAC have published an important new paper called “From
Bolt-on to Built-in: Managing Risk as an Integral Part of Managing an
Organization” written by Vincent Tophoff (with some input from me and
Grant Purdy). This does not feature the usual ‘risk management process’ and,
instead, looks at how to tackle any decision in a better way with risk in
mind. Vincent has done a fantastic job of keeping Risk Listing out of this
document and the result is impressive. This is an important step in the
right direction.

New presentation by Nik Silver

Nik Silver (niksilver.com)
is a an interesting guy whose blog is worth visiting. After we had a chat
recently he produced this excellent presentation. I particularly like the points later on about seeing the bigger picture and making process changes.

Tutoring service developing

The individual technical tutoring service has moved to a new level now that I have
completed the first phase of a very exciting project with a team at a central
government department in the UK. I had tutoring sessions with every team
member and was able to help them apply ideas covered in an earlier workshop.
Individual sessions work much better than group sessions.

Feedback from readers

“It makes perfect sense” wrote one reader from Australia of
Working In Uncertainty. Agnes Wilson, Risk & Assurance Manager at the
Manukau Institute of Technology in New Zealand, wrote saying “Great to see a
website that doesn't just reiterate the same textbook phrases and definitions
but takes a real world and practical view of what uncertainty means in
business.” Others have written saying they would like to promote this kind of
approach or saying they want to write about it. This website is still new and
little-known, but this is encouraging early feedback.

Videos on YouTube

Gower, who published my first book, interviewed me recently
about the book and related topics. They put together two very short videos,
which you can see here and here.